Mike O'Brien
Mike O’Brien has worked in journalism, marketing and public relations for … well, quite a while. At Multichannel Merchant he focuses on the world of direct-to-customer operations and fulfillment, editing MCM’s weekly O+F Advisor newsletter, and programs the annual Ecommerce Operations Summit conference. Previously Mike was a senior account executive for Marx Communications, a boutique public relations firm working with marketing and advertising technology companies. Other past work includes stints as a media relations consultant for a concert promoter, a marketing communications specialist for a pharma software firm, a research analyst covering corporate e-learning and a daily newspaper reporter on every beat imaginable – except sports.
Adding a weapon in its competition with FedEx and UPS in eight Southern states, Texas-based regional carrier LSO has added route optimization and enhanced tracking and visibility through a partnership with software provider Bringg. See what capabilities this brings as well as enhanced productivity and efficiency for LSO.
Two months after dropping out of the Google Shopping Actions platform and the Google Express same-day delivery service after a year-long test, Walmart is adding Google’s voice ordering capability for online groceries as it continues to wage war with Amazon.
By 2025 there will be more than 4 million warehouse robots in use at 50,000 locations globally, up from 5,000 locations in 2018, according to a report from ABI Research, with much of the growth coming from ecommerce fulfillment including demand for same-day delivery. See what experts have to say about the growing trend.
While Amazon dominates ecommerce overall, accounting for roughly half of all online consumer sales according to some estimates, it is not out in front in the grocery wars as competitors like Walmart and Target with more physical assets are winning in curbside pickup.
The pressure is on ecommerce merchants to get orders out faster so customers don’t go to competitors when the experience is flawed. This is why more fulfillment centers are implementing warehouse automation, including robotics, to address throughput and efficiency issues. This MCM report covers the latest solutions and trends.
Dick’s Sporting Goods continues pushing to insource its ecommerce software, following a trail blazed by its CIO during his time at Home Depot, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. The company has also centralized its ecommerce fulfillment and revamped its supply chain to speed up ecommerce deliveries.
Amazon may have raised the customer expectations bar, but the pressure has been kept up as merchants scramble to meet increased fulfillment demands. So how do you react and execute? Our MCM Outlook 2019 report gathers survey results and expert insights to help you focus your investments to compete and win.
Kroger plans to build the second of 20 automated distribution centers in partnership with UK grocer Ocado for fulfilling ecommerce orders in Groveland, FL. The state-of-the-art FCs, built by Kroger and powered by Ocado’s automation technology, are just part of Kroger’s innovation push including driverless and same-day delivery.
In a continuing consolidation of the payments space, FIS has agreed to acquire Worldpay for $43 billion, while Worldpay at the same time has become the first payments acquirer to fully enable Amazon Pay for its ecommerce seller customers.
Nearly all supply chain managers responding to a recent survey by Convey and eft Supply Chain and Logistics Business Intelligence said they consider customer experience to be important when measuring last-mile performance, while two-thirds of them say they’re held accountable for standard customer experience KPIs.